


At The End Of The World

by loves_books



Category: The A-Team (2010), The A-Team - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-28
Updated: 2016-10-28
Packaged: 2018-08-27 13:52:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8404141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loves_books/pseuds/loves_books
Summary: Hannibal still couldn’t think of the Virals as Zombies, even once they were more than a year beyond what was commonly known as Z-Day, when an experimental laboratory in Japan had exploded and unleashed hell on an unsuspecting population.
Zombies were something from the realm of horror movies, the stuff of nightmares. But this? This was all too real.





	

The end of the world was terrifying and overwhelming at first, but it quickly grew surprisingly tedious once the initial panic had faded away, when humanity recognised that the world hadn’t actually ended after all. People realised they would have to find a way to go on, and the looting and rioting gradually slowed to a stop, as the more mundane survival issues of food-water-shelter became the uppermost thoughts in everyone’s minds.

And survival was what Hannibal and his team did best. Survival had been their main skill since long before they’d gone on the run, only now they were on the run from virus-infected humans rather than the military. Hannibal still couldn’t bring himself to think of the Virals as Zombies, even once they were more than a year beyond what was commonly known as Z-Day, when an experimental laboratory in Japan had exploded and unleashed hell on an unsuspecting population.

Zombies were something from the realm of horror movies, the stuff of nightmares. But this? This was all too real.

* * *

The team continued to do their jobs to the very best of their abilities as a new form of civilisation slowly started to take shape around them, helping other survivors wherever they could, and supporting the fledgling communities that were starting to spring up from the ruins of abandoned towns. They offered training, mostly, on how to spot an imminent Viral attack, and how to kill them quickly. 

Always go for the head; that was the most effective way by far. Those old horror movies had got that much right, a fact which always made Hannibal smile grimly, even as he wielded his machete and reloaded the rifles he kept strapped across his back. Go for the head, and don’t ever let them get close enough to bite, not if you wanted to survive another day.

* * *

But even finely-honed survival skills couldn’t keep the team safe forever.

* * *

They lost Murdock first, in the blink of an eye. He was there one minute, laughing and joking with Face, then simply gone the next. Nothing to suggest he’d been taken or killed. Nothing to suggest anything but that he was no longer there. The team searched for him for weeks before reluctantly moving on from the area, though Hannibal quietly believed their pilot was still out there, somewhere.

The thought of their brilliantly crazy pilot being gone entirely from the world was almost too much to bear. But the thought of him turned, crazed with Virus and left as nothing more than a mindless killing machine, was far worse.

* * *

BA left the diminished team next, though he left by his own free will, and with the blessing of both Hannibal and Face. They stumbled across a pregnant woman under attack from a lone Viral, and rescued her before escorting her safely onwards to the nearest settlement. They stayed there a few weeks to rest, and Hannibal watched knowingly as BA slowly started to fall in love with her.

When the time came to move on, it came as no great surprise that BA wanted to stay by the woman’s side, and raise her child as his own. He was tired of running and fighting, longing for a simpler life, and she was quite obviously falling in love with him too.

And who was Hannibal to deny his friend the chance of love and happiness, in the strange new world in which they found themselves living?

* * *

Then it was just Hannibal and Face, together at the end of the world. They clung to each other more tightly than ever before, cherishing every moment in each other’s arms, and knowing they could be torn apart at any time. 

It was still a shock, though, when the worst actually happened. Hannibal was surprised to find his heart could still break, even after everything they’d already been through.

* * *

Hannibal blamed himself. He never saw it coming, and surely he should have done; it had always been, and would always be, his job to be three steps ahead, and he had failed when it mattered the most. Afterwards, he kept going over and over it in his memory, replaying it endlessly: the horrific moment when a Viral dropped down on Face from the high branches of a tree, sinking its teeth deeply into Face’s shoulder in the split-second before Hannibal’s bullet could find its target.

“You should leave me.” Face was so determined, kissing Hannibal goodbye through the tears already streaming down his cheeks. “I’ve got my gun. I won’t ask you to do it.”

But the virus didn’t take everyone. From the very beginning, there had been whispers of survivors, rumours of a rare few who somehow recovered their humanity against all the odds. And if the virus didn’t take everyone, then Hannibal simply couldn’t give up on his boy without giving him a fighting chance. 

If anyone could beat it, Face could. 

It wasn’t over yet.

* * *

Hannibal found an isolated house, where a rapidly-weakening Face allowed himself to be tied to the iron bedframe, the ropes tugged tight with every ounce of strength Hannibal had left. He bandaged the sluggishly bleeding wound on his lover’s shoulder, careful to keep his own hands clean, then tended to Face as he slipped rapidly into the grip of a dangerously high fever.

Three days passed, and Face was deeply unconscious, his skin grey, breathing shallow, and heartbeat fluttering faintly beneath Hannibal’s fingertips. The bite wound was still oozing blood – there was nothing more Hannibal could do but watch and wait, his mind numb and a gun sitting heavy in his hand, loaded and ready.

It wouldn’t be long now, one way or the other. The virus didn’t take everyone, but if Face woke up… wrong, then Hannibal would be there to end it, for both of them. 

* * *

It won’t be long now.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Halloween challenge over at the Hannibal/Face Yahoo group.


End file.
